Interventions to address individual/household food insecurity in Europe since COVID-19: a scoping review.

backgroundSince 2020, Europe has faced several system shocks which have led to a cost-of-living crisis and an increase in prevalence of food insecurity. These events have sparked a rise and diversification of local and national responses to household food insecurity throughout the region. This scoping review aimed to identify the interventions that have been examined in the scientific literature targeted at individuals/households experiencing food insecurity in Europe since 2020 and understand the extent to which their impact has been evaluated.

methodsSearches were conducted in Web of Science, PsychINFO, MEDLINE and Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA), the WHO Institutional Repository for Information Sharing (IRIS), International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN) Registry, MedRxiv ( https://www.medrxiv.org/ ) and Google. Searches were limited to 2020-present and conducted between February-May 2025. Titles and abstracts were screened by two reviewers. Half of full texts were screened by two reviewers and half by a single reviewer. One reviewer extracted the data and analysed according to the PAGER framework.

resultsAfter removal of duplicates, 10,903 articles were screened, of which 166 were assessed for eligibility. A total of 34 studies met the inclusion criteria, which represented 10 intervention types across three countries. This review identified the most evidence in the UK and over half of the identified articles explored policy-level interventions targeted at children and adolescents. Of the community-level interventions, most were classified as ‘capacity building’ interventions, with relatively few published studies at the ‘catching’ level or as ‘self-organised community change’. Few articles had directly measured the intervention’s impact on food insecurity and there was varied reporting of the sociodemographic profile of participants.

conclusionWhilst continuing advocacy for more preventative solutions to tackle food insecurity, there is also a need for future research to conduct robust evaluations of the impact of food insecurity interventions in Europe. These evaluations must consider not only the feasibility and acceptability of the interventions according to services users, service providers and policy makers, but also the longer term and any unintended impacts of the interventions. REGISTRATION: The review protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/pv24n/ ).